On being first subjected to work, the elephant is liable to severe and often fatal swellings of the jaws and abdomen.[160]
| From these causes there died, between 1841 and 1849 | 9 |
| Of cattle murrain | 10 |
| Sore feet | 1 |
| Colds and inflammation | 6 |
| Diarrhœa | 1 |
| Worms | 1 |
| Of diseased liver | 1 |
| Injuries from a fall | 1 |
| General debility | 1 |
| Unknown causes | 3 |
Of the entire, twenty-three were females and eleven males.
The ages of those that died could not be accurately stated, owing to the circumstance of their having been captured in corral. Two only were tuskers. Towards keeping the stud in health, nothing has been found so conducive as regularly bathing the elephants, and giving them the opportunity to stand with their feet in water, or in moistened earth.
Elephants are said to be afflicted with tooth-ache; their tushes have likewise been found with symptoms of internal perforation by some parasite, and the natives assert that, in their agony, the animals have been known to break them off short.[161] I have never heard of the teeth themselves being so affected, and it is just possible that the operation of shedding and the subsequent decay of the milk-tushes, may have in some instances been accompanied by incidents that gave rise to this story. At the same time the probabilities are in favour of its being true. Cuvier committed himself to the statement that the tusks of the elephant have no attachments to connect them with the pulp lodged in the cavity at their base, from which the peculiar modification of dentine, known as “ivory” is secreted;[162] and hence, by inference, that they would be devoid of sensation. But independently of the fact that ivory is permeated by tubes so fine that at their origin from the pulpy cavity they do not exceed the 1/15000 part of an inch in diameter, Owen had the tusk and pulp of the great elephant which died at the Zoological Gardens in London in 1847 longitudinally divided, and found that, “although the pulp could be easily detached from the inner surface of the cavity, it was not without a certain resistance; and when the edges of the co-adapted pulp and tusk were examined by a strong lens, the filamentary processes from the outer surface of the former could be seen stretching, as they were drawn from the dentinal tubes, before they broke. These filaments are so minute, he adds, that to the naked eye the detached surface of the pulp seems to be entire; and hence Cuvier was deceived into supposing that there was no organic connexion between the pulp and the ivory. But if, as there seems no reason to doubt, these delicate nervous processes traverse the tusk by means of the numerous tubes already described, if attacked by caries the pain occasioned to the elephant would be excruciating.
As to maintaining a stud of elephants for the purposes to which they are now assigned in Ceylon, there may be a question on the score of prudence and economy. In the wild and unopened parts of the country, where rivers are to be forded, and forests are only traversed by jungle paths, their labour is of value, in certain contingencies, in the conveyance of stores, and in the earlier operations for the construction of fords and rough bridges of timber. But in more highly civilised districts, and wherever macadamised roads admit of the employment of horses and oxen for draught, I apprehend that the services of the elephant might, with advantage, be gradually reduced, if not altogether dispensed with.
The love of the elephant for coolness and shade renders it at all times more or less impatient of work in the sun, and every moment of leisure it can snatch is employed in covering its back with dust, or fanning itself to diminish the annoyance of the insects and heat. From the tenderness of the skin and its liability to sores, the labour in which the elephant can most advantageously be employed is that of draught; but the reluctance of horses to meet or pass them renders it difficult to work them with safety on frequented roads. Besides, were the full load which an elephant is capable of drawing, proportionally to its muscular strength, to be placed upon waggons of corresponding dimension, the injury to roads from the extra weight would be such that the wear and tear of the highways and bridges would prove too costly to be borne. On the other hand, by restricting it to a somewhat more manageable quantity, and by limiting the weight, as at present, to about one ton and a half, it is doubtful whether an elephant performs so much more work than could be done by a horse or by bullocks, as to compensate for the greater cost of his feeding and attendance.
Add to this, that from accidents and other causes, from ulcerations of the skin, and illnesses of many kinds, the elephant is so often invalided, that the actual cost of its labour, when at work, is very considerably enhanced. Exclusive of the salaries of higher officers attached to the Government establishments, and other permanent charges, the expenses of an elephant, looking only to the wages of its attendants and the cost of its food and medicines, varies from three shillings to four shillings and sixpence per diem, according to its size and class.[163] Taking the average at three shillings and nine-pence, and calculating that hardly any individual works more than four days out of seven, the charge for each day so employed would amount to six shillings and sixpence. The keep per day of a powerful dray-horse, working five days in the week, would not exceed half-a-crown, and two such would unquestionably do more work than any elephant under the present system. I do not know whether it be from a comparative calculation of this kind that the strength of the elephant establishments in Ceylon has been gradually diminished of late years, but in the department of the Commissioner of Roads, the stud, which formerly numbered upwards of sixty elephants, was reduced, some years ago, to thirty-six, and is at present less than half that number.
The fallacy of the supposed reluctance of the elephant to breed in captivity has been demonstrated by many recent authorities; but with the exception of the birth of young elephants at Rome, as mentioned by Ælian, the only instances that I am aware of their actually producing young under such circumstances, took place in Ceylon. Both parents had been for several years attached to the stud of the Commissioner of Roads, and in 1844 the female, whilst engaged in dragging a waggon, gave birth to a still-born calf. Some years before, an elephant that had been captured by Mr. Cripps, dropped a female calf, which he succeeded in rearing. As usual, the little one became the pet of the keepers; but as it increased in growth, it exhibited the utmost violence when thwarted; striking out with its hind-feet, throwing itself headlong on the ground, and pressing its trunk against any opposing object.